Numerous Catholic Web sites among those blocked by Chinese government

Published: 2004-07-27

OSLO, Norway (CNS) -- China's 87 million Internet users are being denied access to a range of religious sites based abroad, including Catholic sites, a religious rights group said. "While Chinese Internet users do have access to a range of Web sites based outside the country that cover religious themes in Chinese or other languages, certain religious sites appear to be consistently blocked because the Chinese government does not like their content," the organization Forum 18 said in a statement released in late July. Forum 18, which is based in Oslo, Norway, and takes its name from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights' Article 18 on religious freedom, released its report after conducting a two-month survey of various religious Web sites. The survey revealed that Web sites that dealt with the persecution of Catholics and Protestants, the Dalai Lama, the Falun Gong spiritual movement and Uighur Muslims were not accessible for China's Web users.

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